Originally Posted by
pdlamb
Look at the pretty colors!
The colors are from thin "cosmetic" anodizing with dye. Hard-anodizing (what this thread is about) is a thicker aluminum oxide coating that ends up a dull grey.
Originally Posted by
Barrettscv
It's cosmetic, but that can be important.
I wanted to match the retro look of Mavic gray anodized rims. The bike also has a vintage stem, handlebar, brake lever and brake caliper that were gray anodized.
The rim I used is the 23mm wide H plus Son TB14. It looks great on my 1989 Merckx Corsa Extra. Braking performance is great, don't miss the machined braking track.
Hard anodized rims on disc brake bikes have no negative performance issues.
I'm looking at the TB14 as well, to replace the traditional/narrow-width box-section rims on a vintage bike. But I think the polished "silver" look works just as well with 80s-vintage frames (which almost always had "silver" aluminum for all their other components) as hard-anodized grey.
Now that I'm thinking of if though, Barrettscv, I think the late-80s rise of a few grey-anodized component groups (e.g., Shimano 600 with the tri-color label) and stems/bars may have followed rim aesthetics of the time. The hard-anodized rims are certainly best aesthetics for your bike above. It would make period-correct sense with mine, but silver would work just as well.
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